The Hurricane (1937)

Wow, what a picture! If only someone would digitize, remaster and possibly colorize this flick. UCLA Film Archive, are you listening? Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour put on some great skin beauty candy for the viewers. Both had long natural hair and athletic bodies. And the special effects were before their time. The "wind" plays as a character in the movie. You would be surprised at these special effects, given it was filmed in 1937 without computers! On a different note, I wish all seven of Dorothy Lamour's sarong movies were available on DVD with tons of special features, remastered, of course! Did you know that one of Dorothy Lamour's sarongs is in exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum? I can't wait to read her "My Side of the Road" autobiography.

Hurricane, The (1937) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Excellent John Ford film has the director pretty much making three movies in one but his wonderful direction keeps everything in line and in the end delivers a nice little gem. Tarangi (John Hall), recently married to his one love (Dorothy Lamour), sets sail for Tahiti where he ends up getting into a fight after a man slaps him and uses a racial slur. The politics of hitting a white man gets him thrown into prison where a sadistic guard (John Carradine) is constantly abusing him. Tarangi finally is able to escape but once home he has no time to rest as a large hurricane is about to wreck his island. As I said earlier, this is about three different movies as we get the typical love story, a great prison drama and then the disaster film, which was clearly on a high as movie crowds had just gotten SAN FRANCISCO. This time out the special effects are certainly the highlight but there's still a lot of other great stuff here. Hall does a wonderful job in the lead role even if it was a tad bit hard believing him as a native. He is incredibly strong in his role as is Lamour who looks downright beautiful here. The two have wonderful chemistry together and one can't help but hope they can survive their ordeal. Carradine has a minor role but he once again shines in it. Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, the Oscar nominated Thomas Mitchell and Raymond Massey all deliver fine supporting performances. The final fifteen-minutes feature the $250,000 special effects, which are downright haunting, tense and jaw dropping. The way this small island is torn apart by the wind and water makes for one of the most memorable scenes in film history and one can't help but feel as if they are going through a real storm. There are a lot of underline beliefs thrown out, most dealing with religion, and they are perfectly brought to life by the director. Just take a look at the scene where everyone takes shelter in the church, which slowly starts to break apart. This is certainly another classic film, which proves you don't need CGI and I doubt anything made today could look half as good as this. Those impressed with the storm here might also want to seek out Griffith's ONE EXCITING NIGHT. A pretty bad movie but there's a storm at the end, which is just as impressive as the one here.

I always try to catch this movie when it shows up on TV, usually TCM. Leonard Maltin calls the hurricane scenes unequaled and he's right. Quite impressive even by today's standards.Well, I guess I need to continue with this review. I didn't meet the quota on lines.I would agree with the assessment above that Lamour and John Hall are in their prime physically. Impressive that they got top billing despite the appearance of Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, Carradine, and Thomas Mitchell. Of course, John Ford, the director went on to even more successful action movies, and won numerous awards. As many know, he teamed with John Wayne for a number of award winning westerns.

The Director Jon Hall gave the audience a glimpse of how the French dominated the locals in this island paradise with imposition of very unjust legal punishment for misdemeanors. In one instance, a white patron in an island bar ordered Terengi, who sat there first, to get up an move "when a white man tells him". Terengi, believing he was an "equal" stood his ground, "Golden Gloved" this white patron and and knocked him out cold. The patron was hospitalized. Terengi was charged with assault and imprisoned for 6 months with hard labor, despite his captain's plea to the island governor to have Terengi's sentence commuted. One can infer a "what if" and say...."if this had been a white man", would his sentence been commuted? Or another scenario, "what if a white man or (woman) had have assaulted an islander? One can wager a slap in the wrist, if that, would have been in order. Overall, an entertaining and romantic sea island adventure from an an islander's (even if it's white Hollywood actors painted like islanders) point of view. (smiling)